In the telephone industry, electrical connectors are used to electrically connect the main run of the telephone wire, which may be either run underground or overhead, to individual wires leading to a subscriber's premises. Quite often it becomes necessary to test the integrity of the electrical connection without disturbing the interconnection between the individual wires and the main run of telephone wires. A telephone company installer typically employs test equipment which is attachable to the individual contacts of the electrical connection to conduct such tests.
With the advent of sealed electrical connections, that is, connectors employing contacts which are supported within an insulative housing, it has become necessary to develop accessory devices which permit access to the electrical contacts supported within the connector for test purposes. Thus, the telephone installer must have available these accessory components which must be properly inserted and removed each time testing is required. Further, in areas where a variety of telephone connectors are used, the installer must have available an accessory test component for each different type of connector.
The test equipment used by the installer includes wires which are typically terminated by metallic alligator clips which have actuatable jaws so that the clips may be "clipped" onto the accessory test component for test purposes. Without the accessory test component, which provides exterior access to the contact held internally of the connector housing, the alligator clips are useless for test purposes. Thus, when a telephone installer has misplaced a particular accessory test component necessary for the particular connector, testing cannot be achieved until the proper accessory test component is obtained. Further, any attempt to reform the alligator clips so that they can be inserted directly into the electrical connector would result in the clips be dedicated to testing only one type of electrical connection. Thus, an installer would have to carry plural different test equipment units so as to be able to test the different electrical connections. Also, test probes are known which are incorporated directly into the alligator clips at the time of manufacture. Such devices are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,345,807. While these types of devices, having built-in test probes, are useful for such test purposes, it would require the user to discard existing test equipment and obtain new equipment having these features.
It is desirable to provide a test probe which may be attached to existing telephone test equipment, and which would be available to the telephone installer without need to carry additional components.